


Winter

by kangeiko



Category: Alias
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Kashmir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-31
Updated: 2009-03-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irina bides her time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter

At one point, maybe it was during February, they forgot all about you. You're sure of this, even though you know it to be unlikely. There are records, after all. Books, and cards, and filing cabinets. There are frequent reports to the head of the guards, and then to the head of the facility, and then to whoever oversees this region. There are enough reports that later - some time in June - there is rage to find you gone.

For now, though, it is maybe February, and you're sure that they have forgotten you. Kashmir is restless at this time, and bitterly cold, and the people find that dogma does not fill their bellies as it once did. The guards grow careless. They do not take you out of your cell as often as they once did; they prefer the easy workers of the villages nearby to the troublesome prisoners they guard. They find other work for those kept inside, where the air is less frigid by a tiny, unnoticeable amount, and have no compunction about starving those who do not cooperate. The woman in the cell next to your own screams and screams and screams for what seems like weeks on end, but must be only days. She eventually stops, and you are sorry for it; listening to her scream grew… well. Perhaps not soothing, but close enough to it for you to miss the sound when it faded to whimpers, and groans, and then to nothing.

They're not starving you, and they have not touched you. A nurse stops by each week and checks on you, prodding your swollen belly with thick, fat fingers. She hmmms and hahs under her breath, and speaks to you not at all.

In a few weeks, you will give birth: late March, it is likely. Perhaps April, if you are lucky and the babe does not come early. They have not beaten you, and they have not starved you, and they do not make you go outside in the bitter cold to loosen the child, and so there is no reason to think that they might.

They seem content with keeping you in this cell. It is not a bad place to be, truly. There is no window, as it would be too cold otherwise, but you do not need it to imagine the outside. The woman next door told you, speaking in a torrent to stave off hunger. You know the mines, and the guards, and the bars across each steel door, and the soft, placid way they treat you in your condition. Where could a pregnant woman run?

It is February. Soon, you think. You close your eyes and wait.

*

fin


End file.
